Friday, March 18, 2011

France is leading the charge against Dubya LibbyYa Mo. Cuz Mo was winning, that's why. And 'Bama was still just sitting there thinking about it.

Thought you'd never see those words in print, right? France fights? Think again, oh doubting one. French jets are probably already in the air protecting those... um... who need protecting. Flying side by side with the British, enforcing the U.N. resolutions.

Just so there's no mistake, the U.N. resolutions against a brutal dictator in Libya who is killing and mistreating his people are righteous and high-minded, and should be enforced immediately, whereas the U.N. resolutions against another brutal dictator in Iraq who was killing and mistreating his people was wrong and misguided and the U.S. were low-life scumballs for enforcing that resolution. They were only after Iraq's oil. France et al is NOT after Libya's oil.

Sigh. Expect the U.S. to be not far behind. Once 'Bama sees he is not alone, he will soon start spending more money hand over fist on a third war, following the war-savvy French Foreign Legion in North Africa.

But, WAIT! you say; all of these Muslim countries HATE us! Why would we want to DO this?

I know. Because they are simply misunderstood. Deep in their hearts, they crave democracy, just like Dubya said. Like Iraq craved democracy. Like Afghanistan craved democracy. These folks just crave a different BRAND of democracy, doncha know. Like the Muslim Brotherhood brand of democracy and the Shariah law brand of democracy and the Iran Mullahs' brand of democracy. Yearning to breath free, as it were. By Allah, we want to ELECT our dictators!

What SHOULD we do? Christ, why do we always have to DO anything? As Ron Paul said a few weeks ago at the presidential straw polling, when Egypt was just starting up: "What should we do? I think we should do a lot less and a lot sooner."

For once in my life I am with Russia and China. Don't do anything. Let them fight it out among themselves. When will we learn? When will AMERICA learn? What country whom we have sided with in time of need loves us? Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. And certainly not France.

20 comments:

You categorize the French nation as cowards who will inevitably surrender to Libya?

Also, your assertion is that all Muslim countries are run by dictators and that any form of democratic movement in a country which has the Muslim faith as its predominant religion is simply likely to elect a new dictator?

I read your blog all the time and it was a complete surprise to read such deeply offensive, inaccurate, bigoted and race-biased comments from you.

Religion isn't race, though it's been confused as such by the not-so-bright.

Democracy isn't the cure-all to all evils any more than a dictatorship by someone claiming to be benign. An honest almost any kind of government has to be better than the corrupt ones that seem to be the norm so often, even in first world nations.

And no one, reading only what's in the news, is likely to have the slightest idea what's really going on. I surely don't. I only know that the news has been wrong so damn much about Japan the past week, I wouldn't trust them to tell me the moon was still in place. When it comes to politics? Forget it. I'll do my own thinking.

That applies here as well.

And I think you're being deliberately obnoxious about France. The only people I know who feel that way about France without actually knowing them intimately are idiots. You aren't, are you, Max?

Obama has been very clever here. By standing back he has shown this is not another US imperialist act and allowed the Arabs to get involved. The French and the PR stuntman from the UK have rushed to lead this operation (for the oil) and in truth have no real idea what they are doing.What is the point of all this? The idea is to remove Gaddafi, but then what? Lack of understanding what to do after regime change led to the deaths of millions in Iraq, the same could happen here.The middle east is in a ferment yet for the sake of oil the west will interfere, and make things worse. A long war awaits here in Libya, and we are sleepwalking into it.Cameron has dumped the only aircraft carrier and now flies Tornado's from Cyprus at greater cost than keeping the ship! What an idiot? Is he American by any chance.....?

No, the French certainly are not cowards, and I shouldn’t have said those things in my anger that they appear to be leading us into another bottomless and perhaps futile military quagmire. Sometimes I get overly sarcastic (never intentionally obnoxious or attention-seeking) in my outrage that recent historical lessons have not been learned and are apparently about to be repeated. No, the French are many things, but they are not cowards. I realize my country wouldn’t be in existence today had it not been for them. The people currently in rebellion against the repressive government of Libya are not cowards, either.---------

Speaking, as I was, only of North Africa and the Middle East, practically all Muslim countries ARE dictatorships. Some may be ruled by kings or princes or emirs, some might have their clergy and religious police working beneath the official levels of government, but they are all, save Turkey, for all purposes, dictatorships which repress their people. This is true of our friends there as well as our enemies there. I don’t speak of African states to the south, or of Indonesia, or of Malaysia; only of North Africa and the Gulf states. Should you be aware of several non-dictatorship countries in that region, please mention them.

I’m not meaning to be bigoted when I say the words “Muslim countries.” The fact is, that religion is so overwhelmingly ingrained and predominant in those countries that it permeates every facet of their lives, from cradle to grave, including their concepts of government and the definition of freedom, certainly including their tendency towards theocratical governments, to varying degrees, rather than a historical leaning towards democracy. I don’t think any of us can say this is right or wrong, unless we impose our own values on them with respect to our personal vision of democracy. History over hundreds of years simply reveals that variants of theocracies are what they seem to like as their forms of government. Unfortunately, theocracies seem to tend to be quite rigid in their governance, and don’t appear to worry too much about the human rights of dissenters.

I think people in Muslim countries in that area are stirring and want more individual freedom than they and their ancestors have experienced. I also think that as this giant begins to stir, we should be careful not to assume that their desire is also for a Western style of democracy. That reasoning is not racist or bigoted, it is fact-based truth: not ALL peoples believe that Western-style democracy is the only path to happiness. It is also fact-based truth (you can check the figures) that in those countries with dictators where voting is still allowed, the despot (as we would call him, perhaps they wouldn’t) gets 90% of the vote as a rule. Put another way, they tend to vote for dictators, or at least the status quo, when they have the right to vote. Time will tell what sort of new and unusual (and perhaps wonderful) forms of governments will emerge in this part of the world, but in the meantime it is my opinion, and the purpose of this post, that they be allowed to determine that future without undue influences from outside countries which MIGHT have their own agendas to further.

Having said all the above, I DO believe there is a role for well-meaning outside countries to play. The post did say we should just let them fight it out among themselves, but that was a stupid and simplistic thing for me to say. In the real world, revolutions succeed or fail by alliances that can be forged with other countries sympathetic to the cause. This was never more clear than when my own country gained its independence, so it would be just too hypocritical of me to preach a total hands-off policy. I do still fervently believe that we should proceed with utmost caution and be certain who the people really are that we intend to support. We must not militarily replace a repressive regime with simply another repressive regime.

This morning,on the radio, during a discussion over the UN resolution over enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, a commentator mentioned Colin Powell's warning to the U.S. adminraq. He'd said, it was reported that "Careful, you're dealing with china shop rules here, You break it, you own it". The invading powers had no clear idea or plan for what to do once they'd rolled in and crushed Saddam's forces. Year upon year later, Iraq is still broken, and nobody seems to be able even to collect all the pieces, let alone put the place back together.

You're a smart man, even if we frequently see things from different places.

I agree with you about stepping carefully. I couldn't say if the generalizations about muslim countries are true or not, but I can say theocracies, in general, don't have a good batting average and that includes the Christian ones that were prevalent until the last century.

There's a good reason to separate church and state, if only because that places too much power (gov't and blind belief) in the same hands. However, some lessons can only be learned the hard way. If the revolutionaries aren't ready for that radical a change, one ugly regime can readily be traded for another, even in the name of democracy.

There's always a risk for corruption whenever ideology is more important than actual performance. In that, the Middle East aren't the only countries suffering from that.

By the way, Indonesia might count as an example of a largely muslim country that isn't a dictatorship. FYI.

Recently, one of our local high schools had to play Roswell Goddard in the basketball tournament. You are probably the only one who follows this blog who would know who that high school is named after.

@Soubriquet - See, this meddling has been going on since Vietnam. Or maybe even Korea if you count Korea. And now they have 3 going on at the same time. These things just never turn out well. Even if you THINK you are on the side of the "good guys."

A few days ago, when I first wrote this post, I said the U.S. wouldn't be far behind. Was I right or what?

Tell me again what they call people who keep doing the same thing and are surprised when they keep getting the same result?

@Adullamite - Well, now it has been a few days since this post and since your comment above. You still think Obama is being clever?

The Arab League are all behind this U.N. resolution. Well, hell, lord knows we've sold them enough airplanes over the years to do the job themselves. So, if they want to so badly, let them do it.---------

Speaking of idiots... I've heard recently that the Scottish courts have blocked Scotland from supplying any troops in the attack on their terrorist buddy Mo Gaddafi. Any truth to that? Seen anything in your Guardian?